Birthday
by Lucy Hale
Summary: Ron. Warning---- SPOILERS for Order of the Phoenix.


Ron doodled in the sand beneath the Quidditch field morosely.

It had started out such a good year.

Well. Not considering what had happened to Harry, and what was happening at the Ministry, and all that nonsense.

All that aside, the year seemed promising. He found himself with, unbelievably, a Prefect's badge. Which still boggled his mind. He wasn't very good at it – Prefecting – and never thought he'd given off an air that said he would be. Still, it was pinned to his chest. 

Not too sure how he felt about it, except that his mum was really, really proud. Which was almost worth the constant haranguing he had gotten from Fred and George over it. 

Luckily every house had two prefects that year. Let Hermione do all the hard work, he figured. Why break a trend they had set first year? 

So, his mum had been proud – so proud that he actually got a new broomstick. A real, brand new Cleansweep. New. And his. Best moment of his life, almost, was when he opened that. 

Things hadn't been great even then, of course. Percy had revealed himself as the incredible prat he was, making mum cry and dad get really quiet and Ginny sit and brood. And them stuck all summer in the dirty, smelly old Black house cleaning and erasing curses and sweeping away dead beasts from every dark corner. Harry, angry at him and Hermione, strange and upset all the time and everything. 

Still. It seemed a decent start, considering.

Things weren't decent anymore, though. Not at all. 

First, that…'woman' was too polite a term, but then every curse word Ron ever knew seemed to be too polite a term to use for her. Umbridge. Horrible, wretched, evil woman. Making Harry suffer out of some sort of sick thrill – just like Snape, that one was – and then sinking her claws into the rest of Hogwarts and slowly starting to destroy it. 

The year was more than halfway done, yeah, but it felt like he'd been there years and years that term, thanks to Umbridge. And Percy. And Malfoy. And Snape. And Seamus. And, face it, Harry wasn't doing much to help. He was always snapping at him and Hermione over something they couldn't stop. Ron thought he was a pretty good friend to Harry, especially considering all the weirdness that went on around Harry. But Harry didn't seem to think that way much anymore. 

Ron sighed, looking up into blue skies morbidly. 

The Quidditch field used to be one of his favorite places. Even when all he did there was watch Harry's practice and cheer Harry at games. Even then he adored it. 

Quidditch had been his passion from the start. From before he was old enough to remember, really, he was stealing his older brothers' toy brooms (and breaking them, mostly), and cheering along with his father to games he didn't have any chance of following.

Then Quidditch try-outs that year and Ron with his new broom…and a chance to make his greatest wish in the whole world come true. A piece of magic had then happened greater than any tricks they would learn in that school; Ron made the team. Keeper. Not even reserve. The actual team.

It was his whole life, right there. All he wanted was to play, to wear the uniform and ride the broomstick and listen to the roar of the crowd.

He had been so happy he could have cried. And so scared he did throw up.  More than once. He worried about it from the moment he heard the news. What if he was no good? What if he ruined things for the team that Harry had single-handedly built up from bottom of the school ranks? What if he actually cost them a game or two?

The truth had turned out more horrible than that.

He was a failure. He couldn't catch a Quaffle to save his life. He missed shot after shot, lost game after game. Harry was always there to clap him on the back and say 'next time', but everyone else hated him for it. He was sure. Angelina couldn't even look at him, really. 

He didn't know what happened. He was fine in practice with Harry. He was fine in practices with the team, as long as they didn't have an audience. 

But he was useless in games. Bloody useless. The roar of the crowd was sickening when they were roaring for his blood.

And that song. Damn Malfoy and his bastard friends. That song.

He heard that song in his dreams lately. It was everywhere. Stupid, humiliating, horrible and absolutely bloody _true song. _

He'd even caught Hermione humming it to herself one day between classes. 

Still. That wasn't the worst of it. Not at all. The worst was when Ron not only ruined every game and lost them hundreds of points, but he was the cause of a fight that got his own best friend and his own two brothers thrown off the team. Banished for life. 

Ron had wanted to die that day. Honestly. If You Know Who had appeared, Ron would have jumped in front of Harry and stayed there, just waiting for the curse to hit. 

It wasn't only that he had single-handedly destroyed his house's team. It wasn't that everyone hated him, or should have.

It was Harry. Harry, who was having such a rotten bad time of things. Harry, who got it worse and worse every year, it seemed, and stood through it all bravely. Harry, who got so little time to relax, to enjoy himself.

Harry had only really enjoyed himself on the Quidditch field. When he was flying after the Snitch he was as happy as it was possible for him to be. It was the only thing he really, really loved. 

And Ron had just stolen it from him. Ron, the joke. Weasley, the Slytherin King.

He laughed to himself sickly and wiped out the quaffle he had drawn into the sand with his finger. 

Maybe Harry was right to think he wasn't a good friend anymore. 

Quidditch alone would have been enough to ruin his entire year. His entire life. But no, things kept going wrong. Harry was having nightmares again. Death Eaters were escaping Azkaban. Hogwart's was falling apart, becoming another branch of the Ministry, more or less. 

Percy was still making mum cry. Dad had almost gotten himself killed by a giant snake. They found out the horrible truth about poor Neville's parents. He spent Valentine's Day sweating on the field, getting screamed at (and rightfully so) by Angelina for being a waste of a broomstick. 

And now. Today.

He hated today. He hated the beginning of March. 

Things had started looking up for Harry that day, at least. _The Quibbler had printed an interview that he had apparently given to that horrible woman who used to write for the __Prophet, Skeeter, thanks to Hermione. And people were fascinated by it. They read it and believed it. Believed Harry. Finally. _

Plus it made Umbridge turn purple.

It was all anyone could talk about that day. Probably the next few days, too. All anyone thought about. 

He stared down at the sand, sighing heavily. Harry needed the break from suffering. He did. Ron wasn't about to try and take anyone's mind off this. Not when it was helping Harry so much.

Still, even though he knew so many other things were going on…and even though he knew those things were a hundred times more important than his little problems, he couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

He sliced his finger through the warm sand, drawing a wide shape. He topped the shape with little lines sticking straight out of it. 

He looked at it for a moment, then smiled to himself miserably. "Make a wish, Ron."

And then he leaned over and blew out the candles.


End file.
